Foundations Respond to Critique of Girls' Education

In the seven months since the release of a ground-breaking report
charging that the nation's schools systematically shortchange girls
academically and thwart their chances for well-paying careers, the
philanthropic community has begun to ponder how the report's
conclusions might affect the funding of new projects in education
research and reform.

The survey, "The A.A.U.W. Report: How Schools Shortchange Girls,''
commissioned by the American Association of University Women, was a
lengthy synthesis of two decades of research on girls in public
education. (See Education Week, Feb. 12, 1992).

The report faulted the way teachers deal with girls, found inherent
"gender bias'' in curricula and standardized tests, and criticized the
tracking of girls away from traditionally male-dominated fields of
study.

Among its 40 recommendations were a call for more research on girls'
achievements in mathematics and science, and a more central role for
girls and women in education reform.

Some members of the philanthropic community concerned with girls'
and women's issues say the release of the report was a key incident in
a year that saw increased public awareness of sexual harassment in
schools and the workplace, widely publicized assault and rape cases,
and the appearance of several books about gender issues on the
best-seller lists.

The report "was a wake-up call for a el15llot of people,'' said Mary
Leonard, the director of precollegiate programs at the Council on
Foundations.

"I think [gender equity was] an issue that most people were not
really focusing on, because they were looking at school reform and the
big picture,'' she said. "The disparities between what boys and girls
get are more subtle.''

Some Early Effects

Thus far, observers admit, it is difficult to assign a dollar amount
to the effect the report has had. They suggest that the slow nature of
grant-making cycles means it will be several years before it is known
whether foundations are allocating more funding for girls'
programs.

They draw a contrast with the political world, where fund-raisers
for this year's high-profile women candidates report a tremendous surge
in donations that many attribute to concern for maintaining abortion
rights and to criticism of the U.S. Senate's handling of the Clarence
Thomas-Anita Hill hearings.

Still, observers say, the
áŸáŸõŸ÷Ÿ report has had
some visible impact on the philanthropic world already.

One indicator of its effect may be the A.A.U.W.'s own success in
obtaining private-sector support to disseminate the report's findings.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Corporation and Allied Signal, an
aerospace- and automotive-engineering corporation in Morristown, N.J.,
co-sponsored a "national summit'' of education leaders in Washington
the day the report was released, and the Kellogg Foundation has helped
underwrite the distribution of the report.

Since then, A.A.U.W.. chapters in 40 states have found it "quite
easy'' to obtain $5,000 and $10,000 contributions from businesses to
conduct round tables for educators, business leaders, and policymakers
to discuss gender-equity issues, said Anne Bryant, the executive
director of the A.A.U.W. Educational Foundation.

"I think what we've seen is particularly the women who work in
foundations and corporations have picked up on not only our study, but
on the issues of gender equity in the workplace and in higher
education,'' Ms. Bryant said.

'Good Documentation'

Observers point to a growing amount of activity on gender issues on
the horizon:

The New York-based Ms. Foundation, established by Gloria Steinem
in 1972 when she founded the magazine of the same name, is setting up
a collaborative of 10 to 20 funders to collectively commit $3 million
toward its "National Girls Initiative.''

The project, which has been in the planning stages since 1991,
received a seed grant of $150,000 from the Charles Stewart Mott
Foundation in January. The two-pronged initiative will include a public
education campaign and a grant-making component, through which Ms. will
award $5,000 to $10,000 grants to community programs that help develop
girls' self-confidence and challenge sex-role stereotypes.

With a $127,000 grant from the Lilly Endowment, the National
Council for Research on Women is working with Women and
Foundations/Corporate Philanthropy, an affiliate of the Council on
Foundations, and the National Network of Women's Funds to establish a
research agenda on funding for girls and women's programs.

A number of conferences on the subject will be held this fall,
including one at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Wingspread
center in Racine, Wis., hosted by the Center for Women and
Philanthropy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

The report's findings have also proved valuable to nonprofit groups
that focus on girls' and women's issues and to the membership of the
National Network of Women's Funds, by drawing attention to their work
and boosting their credibility.

"This has been good documentation for what some of the needs are ..
and what some of the problems are,'' said Carol Mollner, the executive
director of the network, which includes 52 regional funds that awarded
more than $5 million to grassroots programs targeted to girls and women
last year.

Because the assets of these funds are small compared with those of
community and private foundations, said Ms. Mollner, the report's data
are also a useful tool for raising awareness among other
grant-makers.

Some Reluctance Remains

Many foundation officers are still reluctant to fund programs for
girls, said Ms. Bryant of the A.A.U.W., because they tend not to
believe that sex discrimination still occurs.

"Most foundations don't deal with the issue of gender,'' said Mary
Ellen S. Capek, the executive director of the National Council for
Research on Women. "They don't believe .. that discrimination really
exists, or if it did once, it doesn't anymore.'' In fact, she said,
having the words "women'' or "girls'' in an organization's name or in
its project title can still be "the kiss of death'' for a grant
proposal.

Often, programs for girls are seen as "add ons,'' said Walteen Grady
Truely, the recently appointed president of Women and
Foundations/Corporate Philanthropy.

"I think there's still a sense that women, although we are 50
percent of the population, are a special-interest group and therefore
marginal to society,'' said Ms. Truely, who had served for the past two
years as the director of the NOW Legal Defense Fund's
equal-education-rights project.

Women and Foundations cited the A.A.U.W. report in a study it
released last spring on the status of funding for girls' and women's
programs. (See Education Week, May 6, 1992). That report found that in
1990, approximately 4 percent of all grants included in the Foundation
Center's grants index were designated for programs specifically
benefiting women or girls. Of the $175 million awarded to elementary
and secondary schools that year, $6 million, or 3.9 percent, went to
girls' programs.

"In the education-reform movement there's a general sense that
schools need to be changed, and we see foundations giving money to
support [that],'' noted Ms. Truely. "Unfortunately, few of those
education-reform proposals focus specifically on the needs of women and
girls.''

'Look at All Students'

But while the A.A.U.W. and Women and Foundations, among other
groups, have called for a greater proportion of grants to go for girls'
and women's programs, others question that approach.

"I think it's more important to look at all students, not just
girls,'' said Alicia Coro, the director of school-improvement programs
in the U.S. Education Department's office of elementary and secondary
education.

"There may be disadvantaged kids, not just females, who need special
attention,'' she continued. "I don't think they need to be separated,
as long as those kids who are disadvantaged get the help that they
need.''

Advocates of targeted funding say that although more dollars are
already being systematically set aside for girls than for boys, the
funding levels are still inadequate because girls and women as a
population group are disproportionately affected by poverty, child
abuse and domestic violence, rape, eating disorders, and teenage
parenthood, among other social problems.

Along with the A.A.U.W. report, they cite such earlier studies as
"Reflections of Risk,'' a 1990 survey of 36,000 Minnesota secondary
school students conducted by the Minnesota Women's Fund. That study
found higher rates of physical and sexual abuse, depressed states,
attempted suicides, and negative self-images among girls than boys.

Not Automatically Served

Another major reason girls' programs need more funding, advocates
say, is that boys tend to benefit more than girls from grants directed
for general youth programs.

"I think often foundations who give money to public education assume
that because they're giving funding, and because 50 percent of the
school population is girls, that their money will have a generally
equal impact that will benefit all students within the school
population,'' said Ms. Truely of Women and Foundations.

"What we've learned, after almost 20 years of working on
gender-equality issues in precollegiate education,'' she said, "is that
girls and women have special needs, and unless funds are given and
programs are done which take those needs into consideration, girls
don't automatically benefit.''

Ms. Leonard of the Council on Foundations speculated that the
report's greatest impact might not be in boosting the proportion of
targeted funding, but in prompting funders to scrutinize whether their
general grant-making is having an equal impact on girls and boys.

Foundations may also decide not to fund groups that do not have a
representative proportion of women on their staffs or boards, Ms.
Leonard said.

"You don't see a lot of programmatic change, but within programs
people can ask ...if girls are showing up in the program at the same
percentage levels as boys, and if not, why not,'' she observed.

"A foundation that's looking at a grant proposal,'' Ms. Leonard
added, "can serve as a catalyst by asking those questions and waiting
until they get a suitable answer to make the grant.''

Vol. 12, Issue 05, Page 10, 12

Published in Print: October 7, 1992, as Foundations Respond to Critique of Girls' Education

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